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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

D&D Macaroons: The Three-Act Skill Challenge

Skill Challenges are a widely-written about topic. The nebulous nature of the challenge, paired with its newness to the system, all create difficulties when approaching. Reading about, listening to, and running skill challenges has led me to put in my two cents regarding how I run skill challenges. The best skill challenges are like great macaroons: crunchy on the outside but fluffy on the inside. First, I'll explain how I use the three act structure to create a challenge, then I'll explain how they are run.

Three Act Skill ChallengeBefore I ever read about the three act structure to adventure making, I was applying a three-scene structure to my skill challenges.

The first act is exposition and preparation. The problem is presented in the first act: a ritual must be prepared, the city is on fire, the ancient tome is being stolen. The players are then asked to prep for their plan to fix the problem: gather components, rally the fire brigade, sound the alarms and give chase. The players get prep time equal to their success. I take the number of successes, divide by 2 and subtract one. When they reach that number or their first failure they initiate act two.

The second act of the skill challenge is incitement and climax: the ritual is cast, the fire is fought, and the thief is chased. Successes in the first act will dictate the difficulty of the second act's checks; if they made it through all the successes, drop the difficulty one tier (hard to moderate, moderate to easy) if they failed early, increase the DCs by two (12 DC becomes 14). This goes on until they reach the number of successes (total needed divided by 2) or the second failure.

The third act is all resolution and dénouement. The consequences for the challenge thus far are given. The ritual is either a success (it does what it was supposed to) or a failure (incorrect result, it blows up, it summons demons!) the city is either extinguished or the fire still rages. You've captured the thief or backed him near a dead end. If the PCs haven't made the cut yet (they should have one success needed) this will be the most difficult part. If they have over 4 checks to make, increase the DCs a tier. If they have 4, 3, or 2 checks left, decrease the DCs a tier, and if there was only one check left when they started the act, make the DC an easy one.

At the end of the challenge, the PCs reap the consequences of their rolls. If they did well the challenge goes well (the ritual goes off without a hitch, the fire only causes minimal damage, the thief is caught), but if the challenge went south the players have to deal with some difficulties (the ritual summons demons and the PCs have to fight, the fire nearly wipes out the town and the PCs are blamed, The thief gets away, but leaves his orders about where to take the item). This punishes the PCs for failing but keeps the game going. The absolute last thing you want is a dead-end situation where the PCs have to either backtrack or wonder what they are to do next.

Running the 3-act Skill ChallengeThe three act skill challenge runs a lot like a 3-scene play. I present the act's challenge, and start taking rolls around the table. I do make everyone take a turn, but they can choose whatever skill they want as long as they describe it. There is a small caveat to that. No player can use the same skill twice in a row, and no character can use the skill the last player used. If it fits in perfectly with the scene (Arcana to draw the ritual circle, Diplomacy to rally the brigade, Athletics to chase down the thief) then I make it an easy DC. If it fits in a little bit but not really in the spirit of the act (Streetwise to search for components, Nature to find the nearest water source, Intimidate to scare the thief into stopping) I make it a moderate DC. If it has nothing to do with the spirit of the scene (Acrobatics to jump from rooftop to rooftop to deliver components in the fastest fashion, Perception to see where the fire is strongest, Insight to see why the thief stole the item) I set the skill to a hard DC. I keep taking tallies until they hit the successes or their failure.

After the rolls, I narrate the scene. I tell the PCs how the scene played out based on their skills, and transition them to the next act. Then they roll, go until their failure, and narration begins again. Same for the final act.

By the end of the challenge, they won't know whether they won the challenge or not, because it's not about winning or losing, it's about the story. That's really what skill challenges are about: crunch then fluff. Just like a great macaroon they start off hard and crunchy but end with incredible fluff that leaves everyone satisfied.

Skill Challenges are one of the most written about facets of 4e. I'm not bold or stupid enough to think this will end the writing on Skill Challenges, but hopefully it will be an aid to others. If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them!

5 comments:

Simple skill challenges, such as the ones in the DMG1 can work just fine. Please join us at http://community.wizards.com/skill_challenges_4e where you can see how simple challenges have been run successfully. You can even run one of your own to try it out.

It's not really all that complicated, and is actually easier to build than a DMG1 skill challenge. After you set up the problem you let the players do what they want. You set the DC on the fly using your DM screen, and run each act as an "x success before 1 failure" independent challenge. You then narrate the rolls and move to the next scene.

I think using the three-act method is interesting. I'll try it out and see how things go in my upcoming game. It could be a bit more fun breaking it up like that and allowing the players the opportunity to change their mind and switch tactics mid-challenge...and easier for me to toss a twist in there at them!

Players in a stock skill challenge can do what they want as well. That advice is given in the section on secondary skills (which has taken on a different meaning now).

What you describe in your comment is right. You narrate the rolls. If you have another scene, great. The current challenge I'm running in a play-by-post has a new scene every few rolls, but it's not hard-coded. Whether you have a new scene or not, the challenge should definitely react to what the players do. "Twists" can arrive at any time, and spur creative responses from the players.

Remember, skill challenges aren't new. What's new is that we DMs now know when we can stop requiring or allowing rolls. As long as a system does that, the exact mechanics don't matter. That's why I prefer them as simple and abstract as possible. But I'm sure your system is fine. I hope you will run an example as a danger room at http://community.wizards.com/skill_challenges_4e.

That Danger Room idea sounds great, pdunwin! I'd be more than happy to run something like that. I'll Twitter DM you my email address and you can send me any info about it.

As far as my system goes, it's designed to help DMs who have more difficulty with abstract mechanics or DMG1 (or even 2) as written. It's designed more closely to the MouseGuard system of players drive the plot, and the DM makes the call for its difficulty, then if the PCs fail there's a twist.

Like I said in my conclusion, this isn't the answer for everyone. I'm sure there'll be talk about the Skill Challenge system as long as it exists. This is just another way for DMs who have difficulty building SCs and Players who have difficulty role playing (which was my player's problem: they hated SCs and always wanted to get to the fight until I ran the 3-act system).